#148 5 Strategies To End Inbox Overwhelm with Dani Sheriff

"𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑓𝑓 𝑜𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓-𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑠𝑎𝑦, '𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦, ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑜𝑚.' 𝐿𝑖𝑘𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦."

In this episode of the Less Stressed Life Podcast, I am joined by a fellow podcaster and digital illustrator,  Dani Sheriff. Dani shares some helpful hacks and tips on how to manage our email and free up our mental space, so we can be happier, more present people.

Dani shared so many helpful tips on:

• Creating freedom from your email
• The Monday Inbox
• Preventing to-do list overwhelm

Mentioned in this episode:

• Asana 
• Basecamp 
• Airtasker 
• Trello 
• Monday.com 
• Adulting Advice Podcast 

Dani Sheriff is an Australian born Austin based digital illustrator, Youtuber, and podcaster. Her mission is to free up your mental space. You can do real work not just obsessed with your body. She does this by drawing women with real bodies hosting the HA (Hypothalamic Amennorhea) Podcast, a podcast for women who care about their period and creating Youtube videos about it. She is also the co-host of Adulting Advice Podcast

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Transcript

Dani Sheriff (DS)  0:00  

I so strongly believe that if you are really great communicator in your email, people are going to open your emails more like your colleagues and team they're going to actually read your emails because they can rely on you to not make them think too hard. 

INTRO  0:16  

Welcome to the Less Stressed Life Podcast,where our only priority is providing those aha moments to uplevel your life health and happiness. Your host, integrative dietician nutritionist Crista Biegler helps health conscious women reduce the stress and confusion around food, fatigue, digestive and skin issues at lessstressednutrition.com. Now on to the show.

Christa Biegler (CB)  0:40  

Do you need to detox January is really a time where the word detox gets thrown around, and people spew all kinds of craziness on both sides of the fence. But here's the thing, we need to show respect where respect is due my friends. detox is amazing. And I happen to have a pretty intimate connection and knowledge on what detox looks like and when it has slowed. From waking up with a puffy face or your eyes being swollen or retaining water weight or having skin stuff like acne, eczema, etc. pop up, or identifying as a sweaty person, not handling alcohol like I did when I was 21, not waking up energized. waking up in the middle of the night. You've heard some interesting "I symptoms" I can trace to my detox systems. So what do you do? Well, thank god this is a podcast and not a Twitter post because it doesn't fit in 140 characters. When people ask me questions like "What do you think of this chlorella supplement or dandelion tea or juice cleanse?" I want to sit down and give you the 101 on what's happening inside your body so you know exactly if and what that tea or supplement will or will not help. That's why I'm doing a live detox masterclass on January 8, don't worry, a replay will be available if you register for the live version. In my detox masterclass, you'll get the detox 411 of what's going on on the inside and outside of your body. Plus simple shifts you can make to make these systems work better, you'll get how often you should give your body some love on your detox pathways so that your skin digestion energy and just your body in general runs at its absolute best. You'll also get my two week detox protocol that you can use then rinse and repeat to effect everything from how much fluid you're retaining, to improving sleep and energy, to how much you sweat, to that bare nose that you have. I've been wanting to do this forever and we're finally doing it so just go to Christabiegler.com/detox to take my “Do you need to detox quiz” and register for this jam packed masterclass. You do not want to miss it. So we'll have this link in the show notes as well. But it's Krista bigler.com. forward slash detox. I'll see you there. All right, today in the Less Stressed Life, we're gonna talk about something that is definitely a pain point for myself. And we're talking to a very interesting lovely lady today. Her name is Dani Sheriff. She's an Australian born Austin based digital illustrator, youtuber,  and podcaster. Her mission is to free up your mental space so you can do real work not just obsess about your body. She does this by drawing women with real bodies hosting the HA are Hypothalamic Amenorrhea Podcast, which is really a mouthful, isn't it a podcast for women who care about getting their periods and creating YouTube videos about it. And I believe she's also the co-host of Adulting Advice, which is another podcast which is not here. But we're going to learn about Dani because her life is sort of interesting before we get into the strategies here for inbox overwhelm. So welcome, Dani.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  3:40  

Thank you. Yes, I need to add Adulting Advice in there. This is going to be a perfect episode considering your show is called Less Stressed Lifew podcast. And, yeah, Hypothalamic Amenorrhea podcast I always claim as the hardest podcast to say on the internet. But

Christa Biegler (CB)  3:57  

I was just when I knew I needed to say it. I'm like, I usually just say HA aka no period. So I'd love to know where these things came from. One. Thank you for still having a beautiful accent. Because I just like love, love, love it. It's so I know that may be annoying to you. But I think it's so beautiful. Thank you for maintaining that for us here today. And then talk to us about how, like how has life coalesced into what it is now. And so Dani has the freaking coolest I think it's under Dani Sheriff on Instagram, but she has the coolest illustrations of women's bodies that are beautiful. So like, where did this start and build out because HA podcast is kind of newer. I'm not as familiar. I learned about adulting advice later because I was following you on Instagram. And so tell me like how this stacked up where this started and how it stacked and because you've got an interesting onion here.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  4:48  

Yeah, I think it's fun to share because a lot of people will see how this kind of thing can work for them too. I for the longest time considered myself an athlete, and I really wanted to look a certain way and fit a certain mold. And to me, you know, that ended up being very focused on my food, very focused on working out a lot. And I just went through this really hard time where I got really sick from doing that. I just was really sick, I lost my period. And I became very fascinated and focused on getting it back as well as frustrated, upset, and felt really alone and very confused, because I thought I was doing everything right. Which was like chasing this goal that so many of us have, and are told to have. And I was very confused to find out that like the stress and the undereating and over exercising, were causing me health issues, which is very strange. So diving into helping myself heal that issue led me to this concept of like, a well, you know, you actually could just not do those things. But you could just not obsess about how you look and about, like, it made me question, do I even really want to be an athlete that bad? Like, what is my Why? Why am I doing all of this? And I started to really notice myself thinking while I be training, oh, I feel like going back to work. Like I want to just get at my desk and stop doing these things. I love creating content. Like I would love to make a podcast, but I don't have time because I'm too busy at the gym, I would love to get back into drawing, but I don't have the energy, I'm so tired all the time from everything that I'm doing. So while basically, during that journey, I figured out, I don't want to do those things. I want to create space for this, all of this work or this stuff that I want to make. I'm a creative person, I'm not this other person. And I was holding myself back. And I was telling myself that I'm not that person anymore, because I thought I had to be on this path so that other people would like me and that I would be worthy of people's love and all that good stuff. So turns out by just like making the change. And moving away from obsession, of course working out and good nutrition are still like really important to my life. But I spend a lot more time doing things that I enjoy, which happens to be creating content, which is why you see I have two podcasts, and I draw, and I'm on YouTube, and I do all this stuff. And it's because that happens to be my sort of unique zone of genius. I think I can create more things than the average person can on a computer. And that's because that's what I am called to do. Okay, I think that answers the question.

Christa Biegler (CB)  7:36  

I think it does. I'm wondering what your we're in here when this kind of stuff started, like when you decided when you went from like athlete to content creator, and you said you went back to it. So it was something from your history anyway. But yeah, What year are we on?

Dani Sheriff (DS)  7:51  

Yeah, yeah, like 2017. Yeah, so just a few years ago, right.

Christa Biegler (CB)  7:58  

 And I also wrote down, and this came up last night in a conversation I was having with some other women a group thing where we kind of meet weekly to talk about stuff. And I think this is relevant to us, which is, I want to create space for that not time on what you want to be because so often, it's like, we don't have time, we don't have time, we don't have time. But you don't have to create time, you have to create space for it, which I think is a much more abstract topic, which is sometimes what we need. Rather than trying to come up with more time. So yes, I appreciated that comment. Okay, so you've got this podcast called Adulting Advice. How long has it been around?

Dani Sheriff (DS)  8:29  

Adulting Advicelike, maybe two, almost two years old, potentially. But what's important to know is that my friend Hannah and I host that together and we made it a long time ago and it started with one purpose. It's kind of evolved a bit. But the hypothalamic amenorrhea podcast is way bigger. It's like in terms of listenership, downloads, all that stuff, and it's way younger. Whereas Adulting Advice is like, just miniscule in comparison. So I kind of realized that when you start with a niche about something, you speak directly to people, that's a lot more effective than if you have this like more broad podcast that people don't really know who you are. So because of that one Adulting Advice is growing, but basically Basha, we give advice about getting through adulthood, like so General, but it's so much fun,

Christa Biegler (CB)  9:22  

right? And here we are, because so much fits into the umbrella. So welcome to my world as well, which is a kind of a wide umbrella to talk about a lot of cool things. And I know who's here, right? I know, it's like the same. It's the people that are just like me, right? Maybe they're interested in these things. But on the topic of Adulting Advice is a pain point of mine that I heard you talking about on your podcast, and I think I like strategies and your podcast topic was really around strategies to end inbox overwhelm. So for me, I try to take as much out of my inbox as possible because it's like a black hole of stuff, right? It's a black hole of time, suck, etc, etc. So I'd love for you to tell us and to share when you decided to implement these things that help you manage this beast, which is an essential part of having online businesses, or life, because email is kind of a like, Hello, it's been around forever. But it really does grow into quite a beast, right? And so I'm curious when you decided to implement these strategies, and I'm ready for you to bestow them upon us.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  10:21  

Well, I don't really remember exactly when I did it. And it was kind of like evolved, I added a strategy and added a strategy over time. But when I first started, my job is all I did, I moved to America, I wasn't allowed to work, I didn't have anything, and I got a job. So I had one thing on my plate. And when I had one thing on my plate, I could live in my inbox. And it was like a super productive thing for me to do. But then I wanted to do this, I want to do that. And I wanted to be on YouTube and want to do podcasts. And that takes a lot of time, dude, it's a lot of work to make all that stuff. So you know, if I really want to create all these things, and finish work at a reasonable hour, and not be like worried or anxious about any of it, I really needed to get my inbox in check, because like you said, it's massive time suck. And you can just get distracted by all the time. And it can also just be an unorganized way of doing things if you allow it to be like your main to do list, right?

Christa Biegler (CB)  11:21  

 It's very reactionary

Dani Sheriff (DS)  11:23  

 It's very reactionary. People use things on it all the time. So are you ready for them,

Christa Biegler (CB)  11:27  

I'm ready for them, drop them on us. Okay.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  11:30  

The first one is called the Monday inbox, yours can be whatever day of the week you want it to be mine is Monday. And that is where it's the only folder I have in my inbox, I don't have a folder system, I don't have time for folder system, I just have time for one folder, labeled Monday. And if anything comes in, that could totally wait till Monday, which is like my deep dive email workday. It gets dragged into that. And I'll go and look at that on Monday. And that's the day where I allocate the opportunity to get like bogged down in this stuff. And turns out when you allocate that time, and you let them build up, you kind of can smash them all out in about an hour. But if you just let it like tackle them all day long, when you don't need to. That's just rubbish, really. So I find if I need to address it today, I'll address it today. And if I don't I drag it over to the Monday inbox, I think it's really game changing, because it's out of sight, out of mind. And then on my task management software, which we'll get to every Monday it I have a task to go through the Monday inbox.

Christa Biegler (CB)  12:41  

Got it. Awesome. Okay, so recapping, there's like other systems and ever and I've started to implement these because I think I hate my email. I would like to have this make it more manageable. But this is, it's like my favorite one of my quotes that I used to have hanging up in my office was, if this was easy, what would it look like? And so one folder can this way, you know how this is it's like you open things. And I don't know if you have this problem. But if I opened something on my phone, which I should probably take my email off my phone, but you know, that's not realistic always. If I open things on my phone, I probably might forget to respond to it. I'm not intentionally forgetting anyone I have like things built in, so I can try to reply to them. But that's the thing. It's like I add a star to it. When really I should like put it in a folder called whatever day that is. Now I have a question. What if you decide to go on vacation on Monday? Do you like push off for two weeks? I know this doesn't need to be official. Right? But like, that's what will happen to me, I'll put something on an open day where I'm not seeing clients. And then if I'm gone, I'll push it off. And so I wonder if you just like when the task comes due? Because what you're saying is you abide by your task management wonder if you just like set a different due date. And like you said, you can crack through it pretty quickly. But I'm getting into the weeds here.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  13:49  

So do you mean specifically what if I push back going through that inbox?

Christa Biegler (CB)  13:54  

Sure. Like if you're on vacation on the day, you a lot have to go through? How do you catch up?

Yeah, so the fourth thing on the list is vacation and how I manage vacation? It's like well, very specific one. And we'll see if I can answer it in that question. 

Awesome. Moving on to number two, then.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  14:12  

 Okay, the 2pm cut off. So once you've moved everything in to your Monday inbox, you're left with things that you should probably just address today. And that doesn't mean getting like doing the task that the email requires, right? It doesn't mean definitely responding to the person necessarily. It's just like doing the thing you need to do with an email. Look, you shouldn't be using email as a chat system, right? So if you're getting an email, it really should have a task or an action in it that you need to do. So you're like taking the information out of that email, putting it in your task management software, or you're responding to that person, like whatever you're doing. You're doing it before for me it's 2pm I think that's a really good time. So anything that comes in after 2pm doesn't need to be dealt with until 2pm. Tomorrow. So basically your main inbox is like your 24 hour inbox. But it's not your right here right now inbox, because if someone expects me to reply to something in less than 24 hours, I think that that's like a really big off. So yeah, if it comes in before 2pm, you deal with it, however it needs to be dealt with. And then it's marked as red. And if it comes in after 2pm, you are under no obligation to deal with it. And that's what works for me. And some people could probably get away with 10am, 12 o'clock.

Christa Biegler (CB)  15:37  

 Or we could just reverse it to like, if I wake up and I get into my email inbox, I'm not as productive as if I get up and don't fill my brain with it. So in theory, the 2pm cutoff could be like, I'm not gonna check my email until after 2pm, when my brain is starting to not be in its best state, you have to know when the best most creative space for you is right or whatever, however you handle it, right, like you've gotten this down to a science for you. And then for me, I think, oh, I don't really want to check out very early. So maybe 2pm is where I am maybe a start, like maybe my cutoff is something else. But like, maybe I don't even want to check my email until that time. And that's when I'm gonna just handle it for the day, or whatever my end of day thing is because email is more of like a procrastination thing for me, right? It's sort of like opening social media, it's like opening email, it's like, I don't want to get this thing done that I need to do, which is why I do so well with a one on one appointments on my calendar, because I'm very accountable to them. So anyway, but if it's like a little task, before you know it, you have all this time gone, if I started in the morning, and so you can like flip this to however it seems to work best for you. And that's part of talking through it is like what are like little strategies we can use that. Like if you hadn't thought about how you're most productive, then this alone could be game changing? What if I just don't even open it or allow myself to open it until later? Or Yeah, after a certain point.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  16:52  

And that can be hard for a lot of people like I don't have the self discipline. Truthfully, when you actually have enough stuff on your plate, the self discipline comes in. It's kind of like having good reason, as they say, if you want to get something done efficiently hire a working mom. Like when you're determined enough to get all these things done. That's when these discipline comes into play. And I think as well, yes, it's great to have a time like, I'm not going to check my stuff until after a certain time. But the cutoff period is my go to, because it's kind of like a different. It's like it is sort of the opposite problem. Yeah. So if you have an easy time shutting your computer at the end of the day, then maybe Yeah, you need to have a rule about when you look at your stuff, your inbox, but for me, I need a rule for when I stop. So yeah, good point. Love it. 

Christa Biegler (CB)  17:47  

And as you said, I've used task management software's in the past, and now I've really gotten to where we're using it more religiously for processes and things that repeat. And it's nice because it pulls it up. And that's where my email will stay open is because it's been functioning as like, Oh yeah, I need to do these things. It's because there's no set aside time to do them. And so until I implement Dani's processes, right, it's like, it's kind of like I am a person, I don't know what you're like those of us that have a lot of tabs open in our computers. And those those of us that are tab closers. And it like makes gives them anxiety when they see my 20 tabs open. Those tabs are like are like folders in my brain of like, I don't want to close this because then I'll forget to do it in general. So if it's open, it's like this is still an unfinished task. And so I tend to stay open in general, which is sort of like, eventually, my computer's like, so tired, can't work, restart. And so then it's like, oh, I guess those things didn't matter. Yes, sir.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  18:43  

That's like, if you have a tab that's been open for like, more than a day, do you really need it open? I'm getting anxiety just thinking about that. totally. Oh, my God. Okay. All right. Number three is the communication style. I think a big problem a lot of us have is just that we're emailing people, we're not making sense. We're not being clear. They're asking for more clarification. And there's way more back and forth than needs to happen in emails. Like I said, it's not a chat system, your writing letters to each other. You know, like back in pre email days, people were very good at writing their letters, because they knew that they needed to get all the information across, because they were only going to be able to hear from each other like once a week, you know, and you need to maintain that and be short to the point and utilize formatting. I so strongly believe that if you are really great communicator in your email, people are going to open your emails more like your colleagues and team they're going to actually read your emails because they can rely on you to not make them think too hard. You're going to get faster results from your emails because they're not asking for clarification. People fully understand you only have to tell them To do something once you're being clear and direct, which is kind. And it's also just better for workplace relationships, because people appreciate it when you're nice to them. And when you're communicating clearly because it makes them not feel like an idiot. So this looks like getting to the point quickly, no fluff, I think I'd like to see this, just like, this is what I'm thinking. This is my recommendation. What are your thoughts? This is the due date and details in bullet points. And if I'm asking a question like you, I send those occasional emails and you need to give clarifying context before you ask your question. You give the clarifying context as simply as you can. So it's easy to understand you bold or highlight the main actual question that you're looking for? In your answer. And you're done. So people aren't like, how many times have you read an email you're like, but what are they actually asking me? or What does this say like my head is struggling to understand. So yeah, I think you'll be way more effective, and it will rub off on other people. When you are clear and concise. Without being you know, I've definitely gotten feedback from people that I can be very short, and it can come across the wrong way. I've worked on that with people by adding smiley faces and exclamation marks, because apparently, that's what we do. But apart from that, yeah,

Christa Biegler (CB)  21:30  

I've learned that as well, because I take all one on one clients out of email, and we have exchanges via our secure portal, which is appropriate for one. That's what I'm in the headspace to do it for two, three, I have access to their records. So it's like appropriate and it's secure, it is the most appropriate thing, right. And so that's where we have conversation. But also like, it's not going to be a full console via the message. Or I've learned through experience where I've tried to like be long, where something just doesn't come off, as well in writing as it would with the inflection in your voice. So someone may misinterpret it. So if there's a touchy subject, I literally say, we are not talking about this here, we are going to talk about the phone, so it's not misconstrued. And then I see this also, and I don't know if other people experienced this, but I'll have people who are like, the main way to work with someone is I feel that I must have this introductory call, right? Because it's allows me to understand your story, etc, etc, etc. And I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna have a conversation via email, right? But unfortunately, some people like still, that they just decide to, and this is no like fault of any ones. But it literally, this is what I think of when you're talking about it. It's like people sometimes will send you a very long history. And I'm like, I can't do anything with this here. It's a lot of it's a lot of context. So I think it's good for us to all because I've done the same thing. I've also been the person on the other end, where I've probably done that. And so I think this is a good comment. And it took you a long time to say bullet points when you were talking about number three communication style, but it's all I could think about the whole time. And then you finally said bullet points. I was like, okay, that's is what she meant there. And so I thought, what if we thought about bullet points?

Dani Sheriff (DS)  23:00  

Yeah, I definitely email more efficiently than I speak. Sure,

Christa Biegler (CB)  23:05  

I could see I mean, I could feel that. I feel called out by that comment. Maybe. So

Dani Sheriff (DS)  23:10  

it's fine. Yeah. bullet points, I think are just the cable points highlighting italics bold. utilize that stuff, guys. It's really helpful spaces. No long paragraphs, right. And you're going to be great to go. All right. TLDR. too long, didn't read.

Yes, exactly. You can add those in the vacation. Really important. Most people are communicating with people who don't care that you're on a vacation. We're in this world where people think it's just easier to CC you. It's safer to cc on emails safer to send you this email. I get it. I think it's way better for you to communicate that you're on vacation. The first thing I do is tell people, guys, I'm away. And I'm not talking to clients, right? I'm talking to my team. But you can definitely do this in a different way for clients. But when it comes to my team, I'm on vacation. Don't send me your reports, please hold questions for when I get back, like keep yourself Google Doc have questions for me, or wait till the next meeting. So if you have and you can use this outside of vacation, you can use this at all times, really. But if you have a meeting coming up with the person that you're speaking to, within a week, Can it wait till that meeting? And can you keep an agenda? I have agendas for all my meetings. So if a question comes up, and I feel like it can wait, I'll put it on that agenda, which is like to your point of it's easy to have a conversation about it. That's exactly what that's for. So I have a 30 minute team meeting every Tuesday. There's like six of us on there and everyone gets five minutes to sort of like give their high level off their questions to each other. And then we're done. And then I'll have like monthly or bi weekly depending a one on one meeting that might be Go for an hour where we're talking about specific projects with people, but they can bring their questions to that meeting. So I know I'm going to be in a question answering headspace on that day within that hour. And they're not having to send me a bunch of emails. So it's been like a bit of training for the team to get used to not just sending an email, whatever question they have, and getting used to it. But I implement that process weekly, and for vacation. So it's really communicating people with people, letting them know, you're expecting to catch up with them and hear their questions when you get back. And you know, your autoresponder you can have emails, delete, if you want, and you can say, I won't be receiving this email till I get back, please resend it. And now people's inboxes have schedules built in. So you can ask people to schedule emails. And if you want people to treat you that way, it's also just important that you do the same for them. So I always wait to my colleagues are back from their vacations. So I can ask them their questions. Yeah, communication reporting, can it wait till the next meeting.

Christa Biegler (CB)  26:06  

It's a good point as well, I have one team meeting weekly with one team member and then not necessarily with others. And I think a lot of things do get lost. And so until you figure this out, like if you have several people, it is nice to just have that touch point, because it's so much different to have those real touch points, versus this messaging back and forth. There's just a lot lost there. So I think a lot could be said for experimenting with that. Because as I've let some of those other team meetings go by the wayside, it's like this has become less efficient overall, right?

Dani Sheriff (DS)  26:35  

Yeah. And then you feel like when you're getting in the meeting, you feel like this meeting is a waste of time, because you've already spoken about everything or whatever. But when you do it like this, you actually look forward to your meetings a bit more, because you know, they're going to be different, more valuable.

Christa Biegler (CB)  26:50  

Right? Okay, so we've got the Monday inbox the 2pm, cutoff, so like, not needing to reply in it more than every 24 hours, essentially, kind of communication style, being clear and concise and, and bullet points and vacation just communicating well about not needing a comment every time something's in your brain, or being respectful of each other's time and energy, and like just kind of compiling those questions for a while, especially if there's a team meeting. And then what's number five.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  27:15  

The last one is using your task management tool. If you don't have some kind of task management tool, even if it's like writing it down on a planner, I don't know how you are functioning in your life. So I definitely started day one with a handwritten planner. And now I have a full blown project management tool with like, team management capabilities. There are so many options out there. It's ridiculous. Asana, Basecamp, airtasker. Trello. I just saw a new one today

Christa Biegler (CB)  27:45  

Monday.com.  There's so many more there's like Trello and Asana or the oh geez. And then it's like a million things, especially if you're going to look for a new one, because I was using Trello forever. And I just moved to Asana recently, because of what

Dani Sheriff (DS)  27:58  

I was gonna ask what you

Christa Biegler (CB)  28:01  

use Trello forever. And we're there's still some lagging things going on there. And it's interesting, because we've used it for any type of onboarding someone, there's like literally like, basically, it's like having columns of post it notes. And so you can tag people, you can put labels on it with labels by colored by name, put due dates on it, etc. but it's mostly in this card format, or post it note lists of post it notes. So I used it a lot for I'd like put assets in there passwords, which was not, you know, now we use LastPass for sharing passwords. So we would use this, but sometimes I wouldn't get back into it. And so where Asana shines a little bit higher, is it has the same functionalities as Trello. But it has more, you can format things differently. So it can be in a list, it can be an account, I can do one click. And as long as I like make things do and we have a recurrent podcast machine that we were just optimized completely, right. And not that anyone cares how this stuff works, but I think Dani might. So anyways, we have a podcast machine that we've created and optimized and improved recently, because we've always had a machine, but sometimes I was a bit of a bottleneck in it. And so we tried to remove the bottleneck, so it worked more smoothly, more efficiently, which is great for everyone, right, and don't spend too much time on something that can be more efficient. And so essentially what it has is recurring things that happen each week, we make a new copy of the card for every episode. And so what it does is it if I would look at the calendar version, it allows me to like I can see it in task form, I can do one click and I can see what is on my calendar for this week alone, right, and like, when is it due, so I can schedule it in properly. So I think also, it took me a while to get to this point where I was using it because before it was like, I'll just look at it when I need to look at it, or we used it for creation of let's say social media things, Trello. And I still haven't transitioned those couple boards over but whatever, it's fine, but like the task management is a calendar view, not just a list, but like the cards kind of like Trello also list and also, I don't use Kanban system but like a Kanban-ish, and maybe Trello is a Kanban but there's at least four or five different things and I don't use them all. But for some people it's like I like to look at things this way or this way. And with one click, you can switch it around and then There's just more deep functionality depending on like, once you get a lot of balls moving, there's deeper functionality. Now, that's a business aspect, right? I'm not putting my personal life there, which is good and fine or whatever, I kind of use my Google calendar for my personal life. And if I didn't have my digital calendar, I would die. Because I don't know how you think about things. But I'm thinking about someone who is maybe not at the point where they need all of that, like, we can go back to a planner, or like a fridge calendar, or whatever, right? 

Dani Sheriff (DS)  30:26  

Wunderlist, or whatever it's called now, because very simple, there are also just very simple to do list apps, right?

Christa Biegler (CB)  30:33  

I've used those as well. But you know, I needed to, like, start to just get everything integrated into one place. You know, I just thought of this, I should integrate my Asana into my Google Calendar since I live on the Google Calendar. And then if I had all those tasks, I don't know if that would be positive or negative, or

Dani Sheriff (DS)  30:47  

my entire life is in Asana. There is no separation. Yes, I'm very reliant on my calendar for schedules. But when it comes to work, like tasks to-dos, and that's what I love about Asana is that you can hit my tasks, and everything you need to do from every aspect of your life is filtered in one list just gives you this high level overview, right of everything I have going on. And then I can very easily be like, Oh, whoops, I put way too much stuff on Tuesday, slide it around, slide it around, because it's not about abiding by the due dates, guys, like it's not about Oh, it's because due date, and I suck if I don't reach it, no, it's just about putting on the board in a safe place. So it never gets lost. Because that's what it's about.      

Christa Biegler (CB)  31:37  

 It's the discipline of going back there and making sure you go to it. And that's like that's built, I think I must not have grown up with enough discipline, because I sort of like a, let me just work that but like, the more disciplined you are, the more freedom you have. And I think it's important to qualify this because I remember years ago, doing like many classes on like, get shit done. And we make too long of a to do list. And then we're frustrated, because we only get like a few things done. Because we're chronically unrealistic. It's good for one to realize what being chronically unrealistic is, because we can continue to refine and actually spell out what is accomplishable. And we can't be kicking ourselves for what's not like we literally are trying to tell ourselves, we can't do things. So anyway, like you said, it'll pull up the task list. And then I can say, yes, of course, like this actually wasn't like we put this on here for the moment. But now this isn't as important. So it's like just push it down a couple of weeks, but at least then it's still safe, because otherwise it ends up being I was living in Voxer too much with team. And so like things were just getting lost. It wasn't outlining clear expectations. And so I find that I have to continue to like say to all of us, let's make sure we get that on our tasks and put a due date. And when I'm meeting with my team, who maybe someone else has their a different board open, I'll just say, Hey, will you just go ahead and assign that to me for this date. And so it's all like, you know, because you have to know thyself, let's not like let this drop. Because if it can't get written down, if it's not on a calendar, it's never going to happen.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  32:57  

That's a very good point. And so I probably have to work on the discipline for a little bit there. But I knew I was getting to a point where like, I have no choice like this is the way this is the way to freedom. And you should put everything on that task management thing, like my new detail, this isn't about putting like a huge finish this project task on there. It's like finish all the tasks within this project about 100% and be moving them back and everything has a date on it, because you just will forget and it's okay to push them back. But do not trust your mind, your mind is not helpful. Your task management software is and so you're so right, it's just about that discipline of as soon as it comes up, you got to put it somewhere, so it doesn't float away.

Christa Biegler (CB)  33:44  

There's a couple of tips here. The first one is that if you continue to push something back, maybe it's not on your heart. But also, what I found myself doing was it was actually too big. Like if the task is more than 10 minutes, it needs to be cut down to 10 to 20 minutes sections. Like if it's like a half a day task, that's not a task it needs to be that's a project. I know this feels like so much for those who love to cross the things off until you put it in like tiny pieces, you probably aren't going to do it. Because it's just too big. And so it's like I don't have time like, yeah, I mean, you have to know yourself. And the other thing is, again, knowing yourself if this feels a little bit overwhelming, and we are getting into some other weeds, which is good for some people. And maybe for some people, this isn't a good fit for them right now. Regardless, the biggest game changer for me recently was what I've learned is it's great to have people on your team or that you work with that complement your own strengths. So like I might have my strengths. But it's best for me to have people on my team that are very type A and that are very good at like schedule completion, scheduled completion. And my business manager recently said she said people overestimate what they can do. I'm going to paraphrase but it's going to be along the same line. They overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year. And I thought, Oh, I need to sit on that for a moment because we're really like that, and so Having that meeting with her we're we're continually working on and refining and it like, literally it took us three months of like, getting through of like the mountain of crap I'd already accumulated for myself before we were able to get to like a feel good place. But I'm just being super honest. Right? It's like, sometimes like you've kind of created like an ugly pile. It's like this storage room project I have, it's like, should I do that this week? Should I get some help to do that, because if I do it, like, I might just start to feel overwhelmed. Like I might not get it done. Because it's literally it's like dumping like this. It's like dumping off half of a basement on top of myself. If I pull everything out, like, will I get it done without help. And so this is my point, it's really a similar parallel from home life, to work life. Like, if you're feeling overwhelmed, it's like it was time to get help in a way that like, complimented me because it's not I hired, you know, at least four people this year. But what you learn is like everyone has strengths. And so my point is, is if you can do some personality testing to help you find like the people that are like complement you well or like understand what's not working when you work with someone, like you could look at this in your relationships in your marriage and whatnot. It's like what works well, here, what doesn't work well here. And it's just being aware of it. Like, it's not a good or bad thing. It's like, oh, cool, this is where we drive. And this is where we don't. So let me lean in more into the driving and like, make these things work together and like more of the things that don't work and like get outside help for those things. So

Dani Sheriff (DS)  36:17  

Yeah, I totally agree. Like, we basically talked about inbox management for anyone, whether you have a team or not. But when you do have a team, I mean, when everyone shows up to work, they show up first and foremost as a human being filled with faults and strengths and weaknesses. And you kind of need to get good at knowing who needs what. And sometimes it's easiest to just have, you know, this one very set way of being clear and concise with everyone. But also, you just might have this absolute Rockstar unicorn team member, which is usually a business manager that's like, they're always unicorns. And then you have like the copywriter who's just like, you know, awesome, useful, awesome, useful, and also like, needs help with deadlines, like reminders and stuff like that. And you are just used to who needs a bit more and who needs a bit less. But when you have all the tools in place, you create the space for yourself to be able to do that. Because the people management, there are no tools for that, like, in terms of their emotions and stuff.

Christa Biegler (CB)  37:20  

And this is minutiae, and I think the one thing that helps here, if you're feeling like we're getting a little blurry and like your eyes are starting to cross here, is to back up and say what always helps is like, how do I want to feel every day? How do I want to and one of my favorite exercises that I did pretty recently, and it helped change everything helped me hire new people, was just drawing a line through the middle of a piece of paper and saying, like, what do I love doing? What is my zone of genius? And what do I dread doing and what is like making me feel like I have 100 pounds on my back. Just listing those things underneath that was so great, because it's like I knew they were there. Like as your mindset changes, and as you grow, you slowly start to realize all of the things that you hate doing are open for negotiation. Right? They could be changed, possibly, yes, sometimes they need to be done. But is there some other way to accomplish them? Sort of like inbox management? Is there another way to accomplish this? Where it doesn't feel like it's just something you're carrying around and you're like, Oh, I hate doing this every day. And it kind of makes you not look forward to your day. If you back up and say, How do I want to feel every day. And you kind of remind yourself that this the reason people don't move toward goals is because we're not reminded of them, like I have crap kind of pasted all over my office a little bit. Because it's like, I know, I need those reminders. And I need to have a day where I go through and like just move around things. Because I am of the mind where you continue to optimize and improve things. And that's just personality type, I think a little bit. But you don't have to fix something that's not broken. But if you don't feel your best doing it, then you might as well like continue to figure out how to make it work. If you can't move the needle, you got to continue to figure out how you make it work. It's not fair. This is like life. This is like what we are called to do. Right is figure out how to do things in a little bit better way,I guess.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  38:54  

 So I feel like stop settling for feeling like crap, right? And figure out a way to like, re motivate and enjoy these things. Right?

Christa Biegler (CB)  39:04  

Yeah. Dani this kind of became a lot of different things, which is

Dani Sheriff (DS)  39:07  

sorry about that. 

Christa Biegler (CB)  39:08  

That's good.I think it was good. I hope it was useful for someone to let us know in the reviews or on speakpipe at Lessstressedlife.com but Dani, where can people find you? Or should they find you online?

Dani Sheriff (DS)  39:18  

Yeah, come listen to conversations about this kind of stuff at adulting advice is probably the best place and then I'm Dani Sheriff on Instagram where I just like draw pictures and chat with you guys over there.

Christa Biegler (CB)  39:32  

Yeah, and that is fun thing because it's like different things in your feed and it's good stuff. That's where I originally found Dani as well. So awesome.

Thanks so much, Dani and thank you.

Dani Sheriff (DS)  39:42  

Bye

Outtro  39:43  

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